Ruiner: Well Enough Alone
by Sorrow Reminisce
Summary: White's thoughts as he murders his wife. Setting Medium is the Message. Vignette.


**Author's Note: **The Ruiner Series is a collection of Ames White vignettes that stand on their own. This one is not new as it was a part of one of the previous stories within the series(A Necessary Evil) and was always meant to have been posted seperate. Lyrics in the intro by Nine Inch Nails.

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**Ruiner: Well Enough Alone**  
by Sorrow 

_you had to give them all a sign, didn't you?  
you had to covet what was mine, didn't you?  
the ruiner's a collector he's an infector serving his shit to his flies  
maybe there will come a day when those that you keep blind will suddenly realize  
maybe it's a part of me you took to a place I hoped it would never go  
and maybe that fucked me up so much more than you'll ever know_

He would have let her go.

It was tradition to kill the mother once her duty had been performed - once a healthy heir had been brought into the world. And she had done her duty well. Ray was living proof of this. But despite his hatred for the human race, White had been unwilling to carry out that final task. Wendy was the calm in the centre of the storm - she saved him from himself time and time again.

Her only failing was, she wouldn't let their son go. Instead she had insisted on searching for Ray, and he in turn had tried to throw her off the scent. But despite his efforts, she had drawn closer and closer to the truth until at last, her fate as a breeding host was not to be avoided after all.

_She should have left well enough alone._

Stepping towards the bed where she cowered, White's face remained impassive as he began to unbutton his vest and remove his tie, all the while explaining to her in a deadpan voice that she should never have come here. Of course, she would never understand the necessity of what he was about to do. It was a familiar's duty to ensure the safety of their species. Sentimentality meant nothing when it could threaten his entire race.

He looked down upon her as he wound the tie around his hands, cruel satisfaction twisting his mouth into a sneer as he noted the panic on her face. The pleading eyes, widened with disbelief at her fatal predicament, tears brimming yet refusing to slip down her cheeks. That courage of hers, still showing through even as fear left her trembling.

He had always admired her strength. It was what made him love her - what set her apart from the rest. He had once placed her upon a pedestal, brought her offerings of flowers as one would lay such things at the foot of a goddess carved in stone.

Once.

Now, he viewed her dispassionately as one would regard a slug that had attacked the garden of paradise for far too long. Taking another step forward, he experienced a final sharp sear of regret - just for a fraction of a moment, and then it was gone. He always fulfilled his duty.

"I loved you Wendy." It was no lie. Though, it was a mistake he would never repeat again. "You were chosen for me. But you should have forgotten about him. And you should have forgotten me."

Kneeling on the bed now, he straddled her and ignored her attempts to fight him off. Terror filled her mouth with screams. Blocking out her cries, he wrapped the tie around her throat, squeezing it tight, cutting off her air, choking the very life out of her. His eyes remained flat and cold like those of a shark - a hunter of the deep. He watched this murder play out as if he were floating above it all. He felt unaccountable for these actions.

_She had brought it on herself._

Her body gave up the fight at last and she fell boneless against the bed. He rested his fingers against her skin, gently. She had a pulse, although it was faint. For a moment his hands slid around the soft skin of her throat, stretching out, squeezing... preparing to finish the job. He paused, wondering why he had released the pressure and kept her from making that final transition into death. He knew what he had to do - it was the only thing he could do. Still, he hesitated.

She had taken a part of him to a place he had never thought it would go. It was the part of him that had kept her alive all these years, cajoling the Conclave with his assurances that she posed no threat. And when he dreaded going home to an empty house, it was this same part of him that held the doubts.

The life of this woman rested in his hands - it always had. The rage he had felt upon bursting into the room still ebbed within him. It had never ceased to boil beneath the surface, even at the best of times. She was the one who had grounded him - his saving grace. The albatross he wore around his neck.

He knew darkness, suffering, loss. These were things he would come to know even better in the future. And he knew also that he had to finish what he had started. The past could never be rebuilt. Survival meant picking up the pieces that fell, and making something new out of the puzzle.

Gently, he stroked the blonde hair back from her face. Hair he used to run his fingers through as they lay at night within each others arms. She had always been able to coax out the tender side of him. And he had never recovered the surprise of learning he actually had one. As his fingertips brushed over her cheekbone, she twitched, consciousness returning so soon. Cursing himself under his breath - cursing her, he bit back the regrets and doubts. She had gone to _them_ for help.

_Therefore she had left him no other choice._

For a moment longer he watched her breathe, slowly but evenly. Her mind was far beyond his reach and teetering within the cloudy haze that existed between dreaming and waking. She would never know that the monster who had bore down upon her with murder in his eyes had for a moment stopped to reconsider the rights and wrongs within himself. If she had known, would she have regarded him any different during her final moments? Would she recognise that fucked up part of him she had created? And would she see his internal battle as it raged, and understand there was something human within suffering its own final moments of existence?

His fingers tightened around her throat for the final time. At that moment her eyelids flickered as her mind sought to wake her and renew the fight for survival once more. It would do her no good. Pressing down upon her throat, another thought settled itself upon his soul like a curse and he laughed with bitter irony.

_He had lost everything else, but he would always have his memories._

And they would always haunt him.


End file.
